Weekly Haiku
by Sarah Mills
Evie watched as Daniel clutched the bus ticket in his hand, staring down at it like it was some sort of terrible mistake he might be able to undo with enough concentration.
She thought of their final meal, Chinese take-out, together last night. She remembered cracking open the hard shell of the fortune cookie and unfolding the tiny strip of paper inside. Life will soon become more interesting, it read. She’d tucked it inside her wallet after reading it. She didn’t put much stock in fortunes; most of them weren’t so much predictions as they were pithy sayings. But this one seemed like a promise, something she could look forward to.
Yet here she was, standing at the bus terminal, saying goodbye to the only person who ever really understood her dry-as-firewood sense of humor, the only person who would stay up late with her to watch game show reruns and laugh at peoples’ answers. One time, a host asked contestants to name something found in couch cushions.
“Coins!” Evie and Daniel shouted at the TV in unison. But the contestant, with an equal measure of confidence and enthusiasm, answered, “high-density foam!”
High-density foam was now their preferred method of greeting one another. She thought of all the inside jokes they’d collected over the years, like mementos on a crowded shelf.
Daniel was her person. For starters, he hated being called Daniel, preferring the informal Dan. But he tolerated her calling him by his full name, even secretly kind of adored it, because she was his person, too. It felt like it had always been Evie and Daniel, though they could pinpoint the precise moment when their friendship took form. In fifth grade, he sat with her at lunch and offered her his chocolate milk in exchange for her baby carrots. The sheer fact that someone would exchange chocolate for vegetables was enough to pique her interest. Later, he admitted that he had just been looking for a way to introduce himself to her, and who could say no to chocolate?
In seventh grade English class when their homework assignment was to write a haiku, they decided to use each other as inspiration, and thus a tradition was born. They’d been writing each other weekly haiku for three years now. Sometimes the poems were silly, like when she wrote about her food:
What I brought for lunch:
A tofu salad sandwich
Crumbled, tasteless, bland.
Sometimes they were sweet, like when he compared her to a water lily:
Open and gentle
The flower blossoms to life
Roots secure in mud.
And sometimes they were serious and sad, like the entire year that his parents were going through a divorce:
Nothing but blackness
Empty hole inside of me
Fall into the void.
She never imagined that the divorce would culminate in him moving to Jacksonville, exactly 358 miles away, to live with his mother and stepfather. His father got summers, so that was something to look forward to, she thought. They both had unlimited texting on their cell phone plans, and their time zones were only one hour apart. Still, it seemed unfair, losing their physical proximity.
Daniel smiled suddenly. “Don’t be sad,” he said. “Look what my fortune said last night.”
He pulled a small slip of paper out of his pocket and held it up in front of her. “Life will soon become more interesting,” she read aloud, her face breaking into an amazed grin. She retrieved her own fortune from her wallet and handed it to him. “What are the chances?”
“I’d say for the average duo, slim to none. But for you and me?” He put his arm around her shoulders and drew her close. She inhaled the distinctive woodsy smell of his cologne, a mixture of oak and moss. Her whole body seemed to deflate, as if all the worry inside of her had been extinguished.
“Oh, hey, one last thing.” He unzipped his backpack and pulled out a folded piece of paper, handing it to her. “It’s my haiku week.”
She waited until she saw him board the bus before she unfolded the paper.
This haiku has more syllables than it should,
And more lines, too.
Because even an ancient literary form
Doesn’t get to make the rules for us--
Only we do.
Life will soon become more interesting, she thought, feeling hopeful as the bus drove away.
by Sarah Mills
Evie watched as Daniel clutched the bus ticket in his hand, staring down at it like it was some sort of terrible mistake he might be able to undo with enough concentration.
She thought of their final meal, Chinese take-out, together last night. She remembered cracking open the hard shell of the fortune cookie and unfolding the tiny strip of paper inside. Life will soon become more interesting, it read. She’d tucked it inside her wallet after reading it. She didn’t put much stock in fortunes; most of them weren’t so much predictions as they were pithy sayings. But this one seemed like a promise, something she could look forward to.
Yet here she was, standing at the bus terminal, saying goodbye to the only person who ever really understood her dry-as-firewood sense of humor, the only person who would stay up late with her to watch game show reruns and laugh at peoples’ answers. One time, a host asked contestants to name something found in couch cushions.
“Coins!” Evie and Daniel shouted at the TV in unison. But the contestant, with an equal measure of confidence and enthusiasm, answered, “high-density foam!”
High-density foam was now their preferred method of greeting one another. She thought of all the inside jokes they’d collected over the years, like mementos on a crowded shelf.
Daniel was her person. For starters, he hated being called Daniel, preferring the informal Dan. But he tolerated her calling him by his full name, even secretly kind of adored it, because she was his person, too. It felt like it had always been Evie and Daniel, though they could pinpoint the precise moment when their friendship took form. In fifth grade, he sat with her at lunch and offered her his chocolate milk in exchange for her baby carrots. The sheer fact that someone would exchange chocolate for vegetables was enough to pique her interest. Later, he admitted that he had just been looking for a way to introduce himself to her, and who could say no to chocolate?
In seventh grade English class when their homework assignment was to write a haiku, they decided to use each other as inspiration, and thus a tradition was born. They’d been writing each other weekly haiku for three years now. Sometimes the poems were silly, like when she wrote about her food:
What I brought for lunch:
A tofu salad sandwich
Crumbled, tasteless, bland.
Sometimes they were sweet, like when he compared her to a water lily:
Open and gentle
The flower blossoms to life
Roots secure in mud.
And sometimes they were serious and sad, like the entire year that his parents were going through a divorce:
Nothing but blackness
Empty hole inside of me
Fall into the void.
She never imagined that the divorce would culminate in him moving to Jacksonville, exactly 358 miles away, to live with his mother and stepfather. His father got summers, so that was something to look forward to, she thought. They both had unlimited texting on their cell phone plans, and their time zones were only one hour apart. Still, it seemed unfair, losing their physical proximity.
Daniel smiled suddenly. “Don’t be sad,” he said. “Look what my fortune said last night.”
He pulled a small slip of paper out of his pocket and held it up in front of her. “Life will soon become more interesting,” she read aloud, her face breaking into an amazed grin. She retrieved her own fortune from her wallet and handed it to him. “What are the chances?”
“I’d say for the average duo, slim to none. But for you and me?” He put his arm around her shoulders and drew her close. She inhaled the distinctive woodsy smell of his cologne, a mixture of oak and moss. Her whole body seemed to deflate, as if all the worry inside of her had been extinguished.
“Oh, hey, one last thing.” He unzipped his backpack and pulled out a folded piece of paper, handing it to her. “It’s my haiku week.”
She waited until she saw him board the bus before she unfolded the paper.
This haiku has more syllables than it should,
And more lines, too.
Because even an ancient literary form
Doesn’t get to make the rules for us--
Only we do.
Life will soon become more interesting, she thought, feeling hopeful as the bus drove away.
